David M. Kaufman, Wayne Bell
Abstract
The need to improve the teaching and assessing of students' procedural skills has been well 0 encounters, often with little or no supervision. Assessment of these skills has depended on rudimentary physical models, or standardized patients. The limitations of these methods also are well known. A new technology known as “Virtual Reality” has tremendous potential to assist medical educators in teaching and assessing clinical skills of students, residents and physicians in practice.
Virtual Reality consists of a computer-generated three-dimensional simulation in which the user both views and manipulates the contents of the environment. Various degrees of immersion may be experienced that may include elements such as vision, touch or sound. It can provide an environment that so closely represents an actual clinical situation that skills learned will transfer to patients. Many variations in anatomy or other complications can be presented, and trainees can practice hundreds of times until their skills are perfected.
This paper describes current activities in this area in the Dalhousie Faculty of Medicine and elsewhere. Various forms of Virtual Reality are described and their application to particular clinical areas are described.
“The operation is going smoothly, or so you think. You focus your highpower (YAG) laser on a narrow crypt in the iris of your patient's eye. The power is set for 10 millijoules. You aim, you fire, and suddenly the unexpected $\ldots$ a burst of blood pours from the point of impact. Alarms sound. Something has gone terribly wrong! So why are you smiling? Luckily for you and your “patient”, the operation was just the latest virtual reality surgical simulation.”[1]